Red Memories
by Jolie.Mots
Summary: "She knew the place. Knew it like the back of her hand. Her whole body felt electrified, as if her very cells recognized where she was. Her breath was still coming in steady, and her heart rate was normal. My training, she thought, the training I received right here." The Secret Avengers find themselves back at the Red Room. Pre-Infinity War one shot.


The sunset looked magnificent from their position above the clouds. Streaks of gold and pink and orange streaming across the sky, the solid blanket of cloud cover beneath them stretching all the way to the horizon.

They all three sat in silence, Sam in the first pilot seat, Natasha next to him. Steve dozing off in the back. The Quinjet hummed as they flew, a comforting white noise.

"You know, you should get some shuteye, too." Sam broke the quiet, "You'll need to be sharp once we get to this unknown location."

He checked the coordinates again to make sure they were still on track before looking over at her.

"I'm good," she said, still looking out at the setting sun.

"Nat, you and Steve are going boots on the ground in a few hours. Like you said earlier, this place is a shot in the dark. A complete unknown. Get some sleep. He's counting on you to have his back."

He had said the magic words. She sighed, and started getting up.

"I still think this is a mistake." She whispered, glancing back at Steve's sleeping form.

"Any small chance of finding the answers to helping Bucky, you know he's gonna take it."

"I get it." _More than you know,_ she thought to herself, "Just these coordinates put us right in the middle of rural northern Russia. I hope we find the answers he's looking for, and nothing we wish had stayed unknown."

"Some habits die hard, huh?" Sam had a small smile, joking, "Once a Russian spy always a Russian spy? Don't want to see old Big Red's secrets dug up?"

She smiled and huffed humorously, "No, there are just some things that should stay buried. As deep as you can bury them."

Sam didn't reply, but after a few minutes he repeated his earlier request, "Get some sleep, Romanoff. Need to be ready to dig up some secrets when we get wherever we're going."

This time she listened, and made her way to the back. And even though she curled up in her favorite corner and closed her eyes, her head pillowed against one of her go bags, sleep did not come easily.

It felt like only a few minutes had passed when Sam was calling back to them, "Alright, sleepy heads, wakey wakey."

Steve was up within a few seconds, alert and asking questions. "Any idea where we're at?"

"Looks like we are about to touchdown in Frosty the Snowman's asshole, if you ask me."

Natasha got up more slowly, something inside her chest clenched uneasily. There was something off, but she couldn't quite figure out what that was.

She moved forward and stood next to Steve. The red-gold hues of sunset were long gone and had been replaced with endless black, dotted with stars.

"No heat signatures showing up on scan." Steve said, looking at the tablet in his hand.

"Even if someone were down there, I doubt they would have a heat signature." Sam joked, checking the temperature.

"You soft little _kotyata_." Natasha smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. Something was setting off her nerves, but without any solid reasoning, she kept her uneasiness to herself.

Snow swirled up around them as they landed, obscuring their sight. This made her even more on edge. She hated being blind.

"Alright, super ninjas. Radio up if you need exfil on the fly." Sam lowered the ramp, and Natasha and Steve readied their weapons before heading out into the unknown.

Steve smiled at Sam's military jargon. "You can take the soldier out of a war, but never out of the man."

Typically, Natasha would have retorted with, "or woman", but she kept silent this time.

The snow was thick on the ground, and they sank straight into it. Natasha felt a deep, bone-chilling cold, the type of cold she hadn't felt in a long time. Not since-

" _Derr'mo."_

Steve looked over at where she had stopped in her tracks, her newly-dyed blonde locks fluttering in the air as the Quinjet lifted off.

"Natasha?"

 _No. No, no, no. This can't be right._ She scanned the looming structure's edifice, familiar even in the darkness. It was like an old nightmare come back to life.

"Nat, what is it? You know the place?"

"I do." Her voice felt thick in her throat. She was surprised she could form words at all. "It's the Red Room."

Steve's eyebrows shot up, and he turned to take in the building's shadow again, appraising it with fresh apprehension.

"If there are—"

"There aren't." she said, tersely, forcing her limbs, now aching with cold, to move forward, trudging through the knee-high snow awkwardly. "This place shut down a long time ago."

They pressed forward in silence, finally making it through. They had approached towards the west wing, Natasha realized as they got closer.

"This place got a front door?" Steve asked, taking in the impenetrable-looking stone fortress.

"Yes, but we aren't going to use it." She murmured, scanning the options before them. "Just because it's shut down doesn't mean they want people poking around."

Once she had shaken off the shock of being back in a place she had never thought she'd find herself again, she got her bearings and said, "This way."

Steve followed her silently, trudging through the snow, which was not as thick on the ground here near the building as it was on the field.

She counted in her head as they passed each dark window; the only sound was the whisper of the snow under their steps. Just as she reached her chosen entry point, a small and dark, ordinary-looking window, her fingers clenched ever so slightly around the handgun she had drawn. They would have fortified all of the obvious entry points, but with the Red Room not operational, that would be as far as they would care to take security.

She inclined her head in the direction of the window, wordlessly telling Steve that this was their entry point.

He nodded and moved past her, kneeling down and pulling out a small, pen-sized device. He placed the tip of it against the glass, which shattered out of the frame. The sound was like razors on her skin, sharp and echoing into the abandoned grounds.

Steve stepped back, allowing Natasha to slide in first before following her, both of them landing with a soft _thump_.

The room was dark, lit only by the pale moonlight. But she knew the place. Knew it like the back of her hand. Her whole body felt electrified, as if her very cells recognized where she was. Her breath was still coming in steady, and her heartrate was normal. _My training,_ she thought, _the training I received right here._

She walked across the room to the light switch, but was unsurprised when it didn't turn on.

"Why would this place be in the file we got from Chekov?" Steve asked, almost making Natasha jump. She had been so lost in her own thoughts, "Why would Bucky have anything to do with the Red Room?"

Natasha was kicking herself. How could she have not put two and two together and realized this was where the coordinates would put them? How could she have been so stupid? The only explanation she had for her oversight was that she had shoved this place so far back in her mind, hoping never to have to dwell on her time here. Besides, they had never allowed them to know exactly where they were.

It was a poor excuse, though.

Steve hadn't paid any mind to the fact that his question about Bucky had gone unanswered; she was fairly certain he had chalked it up to her shock at being back in this place. She had avoided sharing much about her time as a girl in the Red Room, and he had left it alone. When she had let little details slip through here and there, she had seen his lips purse and his eyes harden, but he never commented on it.

"We should move." Her voice was low and deliberate; controlled.

She moved from the small sitting room they had entered into the main hall, which was dominated by the shadowy grand staircase, still magnificent, even in the dim light and under a thick layer of dust and cobwebs.

She gazed at it for a moment before moving past it, searching the ornate wooden shelves to the right.

"We should clear the building." Steve suggested.

"Trust me," Natalia found what she was searching for, a small blue-light lantern, "If anyone was here, we would have known by now."

She flicked the switch at the base of the lamp and, to her relief, they were bathed in a pale blue light. Steve looked around the illuminated room, and she could see that he was impressed by its grandeur.

"It looked even nicer when it wasn't covered in spider webs." She was smiling slightly.

"Any black widow spiders make these, you think?" Natasha chuckled at his terrible joke before turning to a door to the right of the main staircase and wrenching it open, releasing a cloud of dust in the process.

The narrow staircase leading down from the door was pitch black before Natasha walked forward; it looked eerie in the blue light.

The stairs creaked beneath them as they went down, and something was scuttling behind the walls.

"What's down here?" Steve asked as they reached the bottom.

"The infirmary is in the basement." She didn't tell him what else was down here, too. "If they wiped Barnes while he was in the Red Room, it would've been down here."

The hallway was long and blank and cold. Natasha shivered, but it had nothing to do with the chill. She remembered this hallway more vividly than anything else; she looked up to where the long fluorescent lights hung dark above them, some of them smashed. Their glass crunched beneath her heels every so often.

By the time they reached the double doors, Natasha was close to shaking.

She had sworn she would never be back here. And yet here she was.

"Nat?" Steve placed his hand gently over hers, which had hesitated on the door handle.

"I'm good." She answered, not meeting his eye, where she was sure she would find concern and sympathy. Two things she couldn't accept right now if she was going to keep herself from falling apart.

The doors creaked and their footsteps echoed and the blue light made everything cast odd, dancing shadows across the walls; Natasha had to keep herself focused on these irrelevant little details to hold herself together. This was the place her choice had been literally ripped from her body. Where she had been violated in horrific ways.

Where she had been torn apart and put back together again.

"They probably kept him in here." She nodded to a heavy door to her left, steeling herself for when she'd have to go in.

"How can you be sure?" Steve's voice wasn't doubting, just thorough.

"It's the most secure room in the building."

She let Steve go in first, taking in a deep, steadying breath before following him.

"My God…" Steve said, awed and disgusted.

The tools of torture still hung neatly on their hooks, but they had lost their gleam. Natasha ran her hand over a rusty old pair of pliers, her fingers shaking as they brushed the rough metal.

"Nat…" Steve couldn't formulate words as he looked around.

"They were very thorough with our…training."

Silence followed that.

 _"Tell me what your color is."_

 _Her silence was met with more water. She was choking. She was dying. She would die._

 _Purple. My color is purple. Tell them my color is purple and they'll stop._

She remembered so vividly the desire to give up, to tell them. To make it stop. It was a test, the color was inconsequential. Only it was never just a test; it was always life or death.

 _But she never broke. And she never drowned, no matter how many times they water boarded her._

 _"Tell me."_

The voice echoed in her head over the many years that separated her from that time.

 _She choked and coughed and water forced its way back up her throat and gushed from her mouth._

Natasha swallowed.

Steve was examining the chair in the middle of the room, his fingers testing the thick restraints on the arms.

 _She was naked and sopping wet and freezing. Blood was dripping from her wrists, which were chafed and torn by the too-tight restraints._

"They kept their notes over here." Natasha walked past the chair, her gaze lingering on the restraints.

 _"Tell me,_ Zvezda moya, _what will it take for you to open that sweet little mouth of yours?" The blade of his knife trailed over the skin of her thigh, drawing blood. She focused on that, on the pain, on the way the vivid red of her blood contrasted with the white of her skin; on the way the drops of blood mixed with the drops of water._

"There isn't much here." Steve was rifling through an old notebook. She already knew they were unlikely to find much. Anything worthwhile would have been removed or destroyed. Anything they knew of, that was.

Her mind traveled to a room three floors above, a room she did not want to visit. She didn't see any way to keep her secrets hidden now.

"Let me see." She came up to his side and looked at the book in his hand.

"It's a list of names." He tilted the handwritten ledger towards the light to see it better, "Bucky's name is on it…so is yours."

Natasha kept her expression guarded as he looked curiously at the list. She wondered if he noticed that _Natalia Romanova_ was only two names above Bucky's. She wondered if he realized what that meant.

"It's probably a ledger of all the people they've had in here." She said, taking the ledger and flipping the pages. Nothing. Nothing of use, at least. Techniques, notes on those who broke, notes on those who died.

"Nat, what happened here-"

"Happened a long time ago. A lifetime ago."

"I just want you to know-"

"We should go upstairs. I don't think we'll find anything of use down here."

She didn't feel too bad about rebuffing his attempt to comfort her. She couldn't afford to lose her wits right now. She had held herself together in this room under torture, and she'd be damn sure she held up under sympathy.

They quickly searched the rest of the room, just in case, but did not find anything, and Steve had given up on trying to talk to her.

The hallway didn't seem as long going the other direction, and before she knew it, they were back in the grand foyer.

She turned immediately, leading the way up the main staircase, the blue lantern bobbing in front of her. Steve followed silently, their footsteps muffled by the thick layer of dust and grime.

They walked for a while, weaving their way through halls and empty rooms, the furniture decaying and broken.

The first room they came upon that meant anything made Natasha freeze again. She looked inside, the mirrors of the dance studio reflecting the moonlight innocently, the bar still running along the walls. The musical notes still haunted her dreams sometimes.

She took a step just inside and examined her blue-lit reflection in the mirror on the wall. It had been broken, her reflection fractured and marred. She stepped back out slowly.

"This way." She led him past more doors and up another curving staircase. She stopped first at the room she had spent most of her adolescent years sleeping in. The blue light gleamed off of the handcuffs, still hooked to the bedframes.

Steve didn't comment on it, though she knew he noticed them, too. He shifted his weight slightly, and she kept moving in case he wanted to get a closer look at the dormitory. That wouldn't do either of them any good.

When they got to the door Natasha was headed for, she hesitated.

"If there are any answers about Bucky, they'll be in here." She said stiffly.

"What is this room?" Steve asked.

She held her breath, her heartrate speeding up.

"It's where he slept while he was here."

The silence that followed was different this time; it was thick with realization and suspicion. But that went mercifully un-voiced for now.

Natasha had known it would be difficult to see the room again, but she had underestimated just how much of a gut punch it would be.

It was just as tiny as she remembered, and she was pretty sure it had been intended to be a closet. The narrow bed was shoved up against the left wall, and a rickety little chair sat under the window to the right. The bedding was stripped, and the pathetically-thin mat sat naked on the metal frame.

Her back ached just looking at the sharp springs.

"Natasha."

Steve's face was different, stoic. He knew she was hiding something.

"There's…" she swallowed thickly, "There's something you should know, Steve."

He waited, watching her face. She couldn't stand to look him in the eye; if she was going to spill some of her deepest secrets, she couldn't see the disappointment in his face. She respected him too much, and feared what he would think of her after hearing this. He would see her for the monster she really was.

"I knew him, when he was here." She paused, walking over to the window and setting the lantern down on the chair. The snow was beautiful from up here.

Another memory swam up to her from the depths of her conscience.

 _"You are like a Russian winter," The Madame said, "Beautiful and deadly."_

"He trained us. Me. It was only for a short time. I didn't know Bucky. First I knew the Soldier. Then I started to get to know James. There were flashes of Bucky, but never enough for me to say I knew him as you did."

Steve hadn't moved. She glanced out of the corner of her eye and saw his fists clenched. She wondered if he would hit her for hiding this from him. She would deserve it.

No. Steve was too honorable. He would be angry, yes, but he would never hurt her.

"It was…quick." She swallowed again, "He started out as another obstacle they put in my way. Another source of pain. And then-"

She turned to face him, not caring that her eyes were becoming glassy with tears. Her desire to hide her vulnerability from him was overridden by the influence he had had on her, that new voice in her head that told her she owed him this explanation face-to-face.

"Then he wasn't. I was young. Too young, probably. But you have to grow up fast here, or you die. And he—James, was so broken. He didn't even know how broken he was. Since they planned to have him train us through the final cycle of our education, he had to be out of cryo for longer than he had ever been. They didn't realize that this meant they were giving him more time to remember.

"It came back in pieces, and it softened him. I was the only one left for him to train, so I was the only one that saw it. He became remorseful for what he was doing. He was the tool with which they tried their hardest to break me." Natasha laughed humorlessly, "If I can survive fighting the Winter Soldier, surely I can survive anything, right?"

Natasha eyed the thin mattress, "It was with him that I first realized my body could feel something other than pain."

Steve looked away from her for the first time. Always the gentleman.

"It was with him that I first realized my body could be a source of something other than pain and death. That I was more than a machine."

Natasha walked the two steps across the room and knelt down, reaching under the bedframe. She felt along the seam of the floorboards, hoping that what she was searching for was still here.

She pried up the loose board and reached below, relief flooding her body as her hands closed around a small box.

She resurfaced, then sat on the edge of the bed. She motioned for Steve to sit beside her, which he did, the springs creaking beneath their weight. Opening the box revealed a collection of scraps of stolen paper, scribblings of both English and Russian visible on all of them.

"He started writing it down, the bits that were coming back to him." She passed the box of yellowing, aged paper to Steve.

He picked up the top piece, one that was in English, and read aloud, " _Root beer floats. I think I like them."_

Steve chuckled quietly, "He would remember that." He rifled through, trying to find more bits of his friend's life that he could understand.

 _My name is James. I think._

 _The third stair from the bottom creaks. Mom and Dad will hear me sneaking back in._

 _The butcher on Third has the best beef cutlets for Ma._

 _Steve snores._

He froze, his thumb brushing over his own name. Natasha had a feeling she knew what was going through his head. She had likely gone through the same questions at one point herself. Had Bucky known who "Steve" was? Had he remembered? Or was it a random thought? An isolated memory? Years of friendship and brotherhood reduced down to two words? To one little, inconsequential detail? A memory out of context?

He put the paper back in the box and closed it, standing. She knew he would read the rest later.

"I know it's not much. I know it's not what you were hoping to find here. But maybe reading those will help him."

Steve nodded. "They wiped him here. It's in the records."

Natasha hesitated, "Yes, they did."

"Why? Why not wait until they were going to put him back under?"

Her heart clenched; she had hoped to avoid this part, and she could tell he knew what the answer likely was. But he wanted to hear her tell him.

"They found out." She answered simply.

"About you two."

"Yes."

"How?"

"We became too dependent on each other. Lazy. Too invested. It wasn't love." Natasha smiled sadly, "Neither of us were capable of love, at least at the time." She looked down at her hands, twisting anxiously, "I started doubting what I was doing and where I was heading. I began feigning weakness, hoping that they would either release me or dispose of me. Failing on purpose. It didn't work."

She remembered the Madame's face, so stony and cruel.

"They wiped him, took him away, and I never saw him again."

"That's not true." Steve turned to look at her, "You said he shot you. To kill that engineer, or something."

"I meant James," she closed her eyes, "I never saw James again. That person between the Soldier and Bucky. Just as broken and twisted as I am."

"Was." Steve corrected. She grinned sadly in response. His confidence in her usually made her feel good about herself. At that moment, it just made her feel sad.

The words were sitting heavy on her chest, and she summoned as much courage as she could. She had already told him this much. There was no point holding back the last detail. "There's more, Steve."

He looked at her, apprehensive, and she forced herself to keep looking him in the eye.

"There was a graduation ceremony here, when you made it through training." Tears were flowing freely now, for the first time in she couldn't remember how long, "They want us to be as efficient as possible. Perfect little assassins with no distractions, no allegiance to anything other than the mission.

"Before we are promoted to full operatives, they sterilize us." Steve's expression softened.

"There was a reason I was stalling and pretending to fail. I was trying to avoid that procedure, but I couldn't find any way out. You see I had this feeling that—"she stopped again and took another deep breath, willing herself to stay strong.

"They told me afterwards, after the procedure, that, in the process, they had terminated a pregnancy."

There. The words were out. Her deepest, darkest secret put into words and freed from her soul, a secret she had sworn would go with her to the grave.

He didn't say a word, he just gripped the box tighter, before sitting back down next to her.

He didn't touch her, for which she was grateful. It was taking everything she had not to dissolve into a sobbing wreck as it was. She had already bared enough of herself for him, she couldn't give anymore.

"It's not that I wanted a baby, or was ready to be a mother." She snorted, "Not even close. But to not even have the choice, you know? It was all just so fucked up."

He didn't say he was sorry. He didn't say it was okay. It wasn't. It _was_ fucked up. He didn't offer her empty words. He didn't offer her comfort that he knew wouldn't heal this old wound that probably would never fully heal. She wiped away the last stray tears and he pretended not to see.

He was her best friend, and he knew exactly what she didn't need.

She wasn't sure how long they sat there before she returned to the subject that had driven them to this God-forsaken place to begin with.

"I thought he would recognize me. I was foolish; that's one of the reasons we were compromised in the first place with the Iranian engineer. I guess they were right, emotional attachment would be our undoing."

"No," Steve said, "If we don't love, if we aren't allowed to care for one another, then what is the point? I love _you_ Nat, and I know that makes me stronger. Not weaker. That makes us a team."

She smiled at him and nudged him with her elbow. A wordless thanks.

"Alright, Reverend Rogers, I think that's the only thing even close to useful we'll salvage here." She stood up, pulling out her gun again. Just in case. An old habit that an old teacher once taught her.

As they walked back down the stairs, she said, "I don't want him to know."

Steve hesitated before asking, "Why not?"

"He's already lost so much. I don't want to add to that."

"He would want to know."

"What good will that bring? He'll be confused. Frustrated. He'll mourn for something we never really had. With each other or…" she trailed off.

Steve stopped, the box tucked safely under his arm. "It's not my place to tell him. But you might want to yourself someday. You don't have to carry this burden alone."

"I have for this long. And I told you, didn't I?"

Steve smiled at her softly, "It's not the same."

"Like I said, he already carries so much. Let me carry this for him." She held his gaze until he nodded, understanding her desire to keep their friend from additional pain.

She went back out the window first, her boots sinking into the snow.

As Steve hoisted himself through after her, he asked indignantly, "And I don't snore, do I?"

"I was starting to think you two had decided to stay for dinner, or something." Sam rolled his eyes as he steered the Quinjet back up into the sky, the ramp closing as Steve and Natasha settled in.

"Well it's not like there were signs to direct us to Hydra's top secret files, were there?" Steve quipped, and both Natasha and Sam raised their eyes appreciatively. They always loved when Sassy Steve came out to play.

"Here, let me take a look at those. See if there's anything worthwhile in Russian."

Steve and Natasha made eye contact as he handed over the box. He understood what she actually wanted to do.

 _Let me see if I'm mentioned._

"So you guys found something after all? What was this place, anyway?"

Steve answered, "It looked like an old training facility, but it hasn't been used in years. Bucky started remembering some stuff while he was stationed here, though, and decided to write it all down. Might not help root Hydra out of his brain, but it could help fill in some gaps for him."

"Ah, well, that's good, too. Besides, I'm pretty sure Catman's super genius sister has been making better progress than we have. She seemed pretty confident in her skills last time we were there. She might even have our little Bucksickle thawing out by now."

"Black Panther." Steve corrected wryly, though he knew Sam hadn't forgotten their friend's alias, "And his sister is Shuri."

Natasha tuned out the rest of their exchange. She was so used to it, that this was easy. Instead, she focused on the cramped handwriting, so familiar to her, yet from what felt like several lifetimes ago. It was like revisiting your hometown after years of being away.

After she had gone through every scrap of paper, she found herself referenced three separate times, each of them in Russian.

 _The redhead reminds me of Letty. I don't remember who Letty is. I think I kissed her. Her lips look the same._

 _Natalia tastes like peaches._

 _Natalia dances beautifully._

She held each note tightly between her fingers, reading them over several times. These were the things about her he had found important enough to write down. These were the things about her he hadn't wanted to forget. Her lips. How she tasted. How she moved.

This made it real, what they had had. Like she had told Steve, she and Bucky hadn't been in love. They were both too fucked in the head to fall in love. But it had been special, whatever it had been. And these notes gave her something more tangible than just her fading memories.

 _Natalia dances beautifully._

If only he had known what that beauty had cost. Broken, bleeding toes. Psychological torture. Exhaustion nearly to the point of collapse.

But he had known. He had seen her mangled feet, even tried to alleviate her pain once. The metal hand had sort of gotten in the way of that. He had seen her warped and twisted and dark, on the verge of breaking, and he had found her beautiful anyway.

Her heart ached, and she tucked the three little scraps of paper, the only thing left of his memory of her, into an inside pocket before standing and returning the box to Steve. They had mercifully stopped bickering, and had dug up some snacks.

"Here you go. Nothing groundbreaking, exactly. He does mention you a few more times, though."

Steve nodded, trying to read her, "Did he mention anyone else?"

"A few," her poker face was back in full force, "Girls mostly."

"Typical Buck." Steve smirked knowingly.

"Apparently someone named 'Letty' had nice lips."

"Letty. Now that's a grandma name if I ever heard one." Sam piped in.

"For all we know, Sam, that _was_ your grandma."

"Hey now, that's not cool. The last thing I want in my imagination is my sweet little Meemaw showing off her 'nice lips' to Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dangerous."

They continued on like that, teasing and laughing, talking about nothing serious, until the dawn started breaking.

After landing near some little country town where they could find decent food, Natasha felt almost back to normal.

When they got back to the Quinjet, which would be flying on autopilot towards Africa while Sam got some needed sleep, it was almost like the visit back to the Red Room hadn't happened. Just another painful memory in her rearview mirror.

"It might come back to him, you know." Steve was focused on inspecting their gear, tightening straps and consolidating supplies. His murmur was low, so as not to wake Sam.

She was helping by inventorying their ammo, arranging everything neatly, just the way she liked it. She paused, her hand hovering over the next case of bullets.

"It won't."

"Other things have. And that box of memories might trigger more than you think."

"Our time together was so brief. Especially to him, an old man with several lives. I doubt I made a lasting impression."

"I can't imagine you leaving anything _but_ a lasting impression." Steve was smirking again, and she couldn't help but smile back.

"Do I sense a little bit of innuendo there, Captain Rogers?"

"I'm just saying, Bucky was always drawn to the firecrackers. I doubt even being brainwashed into a super soldier for the Soviet Union could have wiped away that particular proclivity."

"I was the deadliest of his trainees; that's like kindling to a fire for us secret assassins."

"Yes, I'm sure all the fighting and blood really spiced things up. In all seriousness, though, Nat," he paused, "Have you thought about what you'd do if it does come back to him?"

"No, not really. I guess I'll cross that bridge…or whatever the hell that saying is."

"Alright, well I guess that's fair."

"You'd think you were my dad or something." She tried to lighten it back up again. She'd had enough heavy conversation that night to last her a while.

"Watch your tone, young lady." He followed her lead, and they both continued working, bantering back and forth in low murmurs as their pilot slept on, snoring lightly.

"You never answered my question."

"Oh yeah, what was that?"

"I don't snore, do I? I mean, Bucky could barely remember my name when he was the Soldier, he can't exactly be a reliable source on the topic."

Natasha snorted, "Will it make you feel better if I say you don't snore?"

"Answered like a true spy. No, I want to know the truth."

"Then no, you don't snore. He was probably remembering from when you were all small, and scrawny, and asthmatic or something."

"Really?"

"Really. Only thing is, you'll never be able to verify my answer for yourself. So you'll just have to learn to trust me."

Steve smiled, "I already do."

A/N: Thanks for reading! I only know these characters from the movies, so forgive me if I got any details incorrect. I may continue this as a series of one-shots from the time these three were on the run as secret avengers.

If you have a free moment, I'd love to hear what you thought :)


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